


Mockingbird

by Kat2107



Series: Legacy [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Additional scenes, Ben is trying so hard, M/M, So is Leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 10:38:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7099489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Organa owns a box. That box holds everything that once belonged to Kylo Ren. A lightsaber. A holo of a man, his shirt open, an impeccable, red eyebrow raised in annoyance. A picture of a little boy that calls him uncle Ben and that he sometimes gets to see when no one is around to notice where he goes.</p><p>Ben Organa owns a box and it holds everything he never again expected to call his own. That is not how the Force works.</p><p>Except, that is <i>exactly </i> how the Force works.<br/>He doesn't expect Brendol Hux to come crashing back into his life and with him so much more than he ever dared hope for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mockingbird

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eridani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eridani/gifts).



> So, this snippet is something that needs to be dedicated to Eridani.  
> At some point during the ordeal that was the KBB she asked me how it went when Ben met Mia. I word vomited 1300 words and this is it.  
> Originally I planned to wait a week until the worst of the KBB hype died down, but someone left such wonderful comments on Let Go that I just had to post it.  
> Thank you all. Thank you for your support and your kudos and your wonderful comments. You can't possibly imagine how much those mean to me!
> 
>  
> 
> Should read [ Let Go (of everything you fear to lose) ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6976123/chapters/15899377) first.

He was meditating when they told him. Maybe they hoped he’d take it better in a state of enforced calm. Endearing optimism.

But they had nothing to fear. Ben made it a point to not be scary, to control himself. To be steady, reliable and as nonthreatening as possible, supporting them, running more secret missions than even Rey and her little crew. At that moment, though, the man reared his head who had only packed away the red monstrosity Kylo Ren had called his lightsaber, not destroyed. Because Kylo Ren had belonged to Hux.

“Your mother wants to see you.” Connix leaned against the door frame, none of her usual easygoing nature showing. “Someone made contact with the Cygna outpost and said….” She gulped. “He has your child.”

“I don’t have a child…”  The warning tingle on the back of Ben’s head swelled to a war drum and he was on his feet in an instant. _Listen_ , the Force screamed, _listen! This is life changing_.

“Who said that?” Ben Organa asked with carefully controlled calm.

“General…” Ben was moving already. “Hux.”

Connix jumped out of the way as Darth Vader’s grandson stormed out of the room.

***

“You should have told me!” His voice echoed from the standard issue plastcrete walls, a distorted sound that didn’t sound like him at all. “I should be there, mother!

“Ben…” After a deep breath, Leia Organa dropped her outstretched hand and took a step back. “We need to make sure to protect you, too, Ben! Snoke is still after you. There is no one the First Order hates more at the moment, not to talk about the spies in the Republic. We needed to keep this low-key.”

On the other side of the room, Ben turned away, paced three steps, whirled back to her, not in the slightest placated by her words. And how could he be?

“Rey is on it,” Leia continued, softer. “She’ll make sure that the child, if there even is a child, is not harmed.” Ben turned away from her again, unable to deal with the knowledge on her face. The child existed and Ben’s mother, no matter how untrained, had received the same confirmation from the Force as he. A child.

There already was a child, living on a far away planet with little that could be of interest, safely tucked away in the arms of a side branch of the Naberrie family. Hux’s child. Andras.

_Uncle Ben! When will you come again? Look, I built a wooden sword. Can you teach me?_

“And Hux?” Ben asked, staring out the window, lips pressed into a tight line.

“He will be dealt with according to... " Leia’s voice faltered and for the first time maybe she saw her son and not a picture of firm control he had been keeping up for their sake. He wasn’t crying, not screaming, but on his face, too many things fell at once. A tentative trust, a feeling of home warring with the thought of them killing Hux who... fuck

"If you hurt him, mother, I am gone and trust me, I will leave you to deal with Snoke alone. Not because I have a temper tantrum or whatever else people say to... I won't be able to look at you or anybody, here again, knowing that you ..."

He got spared from saying it when the door opened and an aid stuck their head inside, staring at Leia's guilt-ridden expression first, then at Ben with a certain apprehension in their eyes that he had come to expect "The Falcon just left hyperspace, General. they're requesting urgent medical assistance."

Ben moved before the man had finished speaking, ran out of the meeting room, yelling at Kalonia to prep an emergency team and meet him on the landing strip.

He didn’t expect it, but the moment he marched out of the building Leia was at his side, her shorter legs stomping to keep up and yes, he slowed down for her.

"You need to tell me about him, Ben, because that is not..."

"Later, mother, really. Just.. if you can... He was the one who made it possible for me to defect. He knew months in advance and kept silent to protect me."

"That little boy," she said and stopped short, her gaze fixed on Ben, suddenly knowing, "the planet you keep visiting. The little redhead..."

Ben just stared at her, not angry, just... "You sicced the spies on me?"

And when she shrugged he huffed a laugh. "You two... you and him? You'd get along perfectly. Trust me on this. You'll hate each other on sight but you would take over the galaxy within two weeks."

"Be that as it may, Ben, am I right? How long have you been planning all of this? Did you know?"

“Andras was... he has nothing to do with me leaving or... any of this. We just needed to get him out from under First Order before they could stick him into his mandatory turn in the stormtrooper program to be brainwashed and broken like Hu... " Ben broke off with a deep breath. "Andras has nothing to do with it. Me or.. or... " Looking up the landing field, the Falcon a bare speck against the blue sky. "I had no idea. If Hux thinks this is true, it's true and I had... I have never been a very reliable follower." His smile hurt. "And let it not be put past Snoke to be prepared."

He rubbed his fist over his chest, right where his heart sat and the tears gathering in his eyes were as angry as they were painful. "Force, I didn't know. I swear I would never have left him... her..." Leia took his hand, silent for once with the absence of anything comforting to say. "I know Ben." She smiled and folded their fingers together for the first time in 20 years, in an honest way he hadn't allowed himself to have before they sent him away and hadn't had a chance to feel since then.

“I’ll send someone to get the boy and his foster family to safety. They’re too exposed out there.”

In lieu of words that he couldn’t have pushed past the anxiety, Ben just smiled.

 

The Falcon landed with an elegance that was all Rey and a surety that was all Chewie. From behind it Dameron's X-wing blazed over them tearing up the sky on his way to the hangars.

Ben started, stopped, holding back as the ramp lowered for the sake of Doc Kalonia running past to where Chewie stood, a body in his arms that, on first glance, looked an awful lot like Han. A strange disassociation and Leia held on tighter for the one second it took them to realize it was not. One half of Hux's face was grotesquely swollen, the shirt blood spattered with his arm hanging limply down. Finn ran down the ramp right behind Chewie, already yelling Hux’s vitals at Kalonia and ticking of injuries that Ben couldn’t, mustn't hear if he was to retain any shred of sanity.

"Ben!" His mother urged and he reacted before he had a chance to think, snarling in a way Ben Organa-Solo hadn't since he returned.

"What?" Kylo Ren demanded and Leia jerked back before she caught herself. Then she touched his arm and pointed to the Falcon. "I take care of your...him. You see if the child is what he said."

It was the last thing Ben wanted. He wanted his mother to take care of whomever Hux brought with him, free himself to protect the man, too still, too pale on the gurney. But he nodded.  

Ben Organa wasn’t Snoke's volatile creature anymore. He had a son on some distant planet in the Neutral Zone that called him uncle Ben. He was, if not a Jedi, then something responsible still. Protecting, yadda yadda.

"Ok," he said, warming himself on the pride in his mother’s eyes. "we've been together... before this in one form or another, we've been together for almost two years, and..."

“I will protect him.” Leia smiled and untangled their hands. “I promise.”

On the top of the Falcon's landing ramp, Rey stood, proud and tiny as only she could be, here eyes fixed steadfastly ahead, searching for her cousin. At her hand, hip high with short, wildly tousled black hair, waited a girl. Pale. Thin, tear stained eyes suspiciously narrowed and her small body wrapped in a rough, black robe. A Knight’s robe. She looked like Ben, and even if she hadn't, the maelstrom of barely restrained emotional chaos behind that sweet face slotted into his own aura like a missing piece.

Rey tugged her back, away from the gurney and the little girl’s reaction was to tug her hand from Rey's with a glare that promised murder. Haughtily she raised her chin and set her posture, shoulders back, a stuffed animal dangling from her hand. Ren couldn't hear what they were saying, but it couldn't have been too dark side. Rey smiled.

And then she pointed in a different direction, down that ramp where Ben had slowly moved forward, hesitant step by hesitant step. The child was moving too, stomping down the ramp, all regal power and none of his own awkwardness. She looked like Hux, with purpose and will etched around a full mouth and a strong nose. When she stopped there were barely three hand spans between them, her head tilted back to look at him - Force, she was tiny.

"Anakin Skywalker was not weak for killing the Emperor to protect Luke, that is a complete lie! He was strong and a hero and Snoke lies!"

He tried. Ben scrunched up his face and grit his teeth to hold back the tears that dripped one by one from his lashes and he failed completely.

"Yes, I know," he said and dropped to his knees to gather her into his arms. "I swear, I know that." "And you are, too. Da told me. Everything."

It was so easy to stand with her in his arms, to elevate her above those around them and wrap her in a protective shield of his own fury while he tried to somehow get a grip

"And I am too and I am not giving you his data chip until you stop hurting him..."

"Alright."

"...and help him..."

"Alright,” he murmured, laughter threatening to bubble up from places he had locked away months ago. Places that missed so much it hurt.

Rey stepped closer, looking up at Ben with knowledge on her face, mouthing: "Deal with it," with a grin. And like that he knew Hux would be fine. Rey wouldn't lie. She was a Jedi and that was the most comforting truth he ever knew. The girl on his arm wasn't done, she laid out terms of surrender, not knowing that he already had laid his heart at her feet.

"All right," Ben said and turned down the tarmac, walking were the gurney already vanished. "What's on the chip?" he asked. It seemed somehow important.

"Oh... plans,” she quipped. “Command structure, numbers, places. people. The whole First Order." With a smile, she nodded. "I know you want that."

 _Forcedammit, Hux,_ Ben thought and laughed. _Forcedammit, Hux._


End file.
